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Boehner meets with White House

PHOTOS: Sequestration: Final day

Next to no progress was made at the White House, said several sources familiar with the meeting, and both sides hewed closely to talking points, as $85 billion in budget cuts loom.

Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio), who has sworn off closed-door negotiations with the president, said inside the meeting that the House has acted twice in passing a bill to delay the sequester, so now it’s up to the Senate. Those bills were passed in the 112th Congress and are no longer operative.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) snapped back that “there is that pesky thing called the Constitution that says that was then, this is now.”

That means Obama’s strategy for turning off $85 billion in spending cuts set to kick in Friday now rests solely on the White House building enough public pressure onRepublicans for them to return to the negotiating table.

“There’s no reason why we should have another crisis by shutting the government down in addition to these arbitrary spending cuts,” Obama told reporters after meeting with congressional leaders.

It was long assumed that the White House and Congress would use the expiration of government funding on March 27 as a vehicle for replacing the indiscriminate cuts of the sequester with more targeted spending reductions — and, if the president got his way, fresh revenue from closing tax loopholes.

But with the president removing it as an option, a deal could be months away — a reality that Obama acknowledged Friday.

“My hope is that, after some reflection, as members of Congress start hearing from constituents who are being negatively impacted, as we start seeing the impact that the sequester’s having, that they step back and say, all right, is there a way for us to move forward on a package of entitlement reforms, tax reform, not raising tax rates, identifying programs that don’t work, coming up with a plan that’s comprehensive and that makes sense?” Obama said from the White House briefing room. “And it may take a couple of weeks, it may take a couple of months, but I’m just going to keep pushing on it.”

Obama spent an hour with congressional leaders, but it was clear they accomplished next to nothing. The meeting began at 10:18 — just a smidge more than 12 hours before the sequester was scheduled to begin —and ended at 11:10 a.m.

House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) emerged from the meeting reiterating that Republicans wouldn’t budge on revenues as part of a sequester solution. Instead, they want a replacement solely based on spending cuts.

“But let’s make it clear that the president got his tax hikes on Jan. 1,” Boehner said outside of the White House. This discussion about revenue, in my view, is over. It’s about taking on the spending problem here in Washington.”